Avenue D

“Big Arthur wants his spots back.” I’m standing on the roof of 50 Avenue D talking to Venus. Born and raised in the Wald Houses, one of the oldest high-rises in New York’s public housing system, Venus has been earning her nickname since her early teens. She’s a head turner for sure, what the locals called a jincha. Her long, dark hair and wholesome, Ivory girl looks earn her a loyal following of junkie buyers and she commands a weird sort of “no molestar” respect from the other corner dealers. She has just about every guy she knows wrapped around her finger.

She’s also been doing and dealing smack for almost as long. I’ve known her for nearly a year now—since my first week assigned to plainclothes Operation 8. When I busted her then, she tried to swallow a bag of dope she was holding, and I had to improvise a variation on the Heimlich maneuver before she could choke it down. I collared her, but we became friends. It’s hard not to like her—she isn’t just incredible looking, she has a blunt kind of honesty about everything except her own dope habit that’s endearing and comes in pretty handy sometimes. Like now. It’s a few months after the Sabu fiasco and I still want a name. A real one. One that fits the organization and order enforced within the Third Street crew.

The goddess of love is a reliable informant. Her info is always on the level, and she never once asks for any of the things I’ll trade with other snitches—money, dope, or some uninterrupted dealing time—in return. Venus always says she’s going to clean up, move out to California with a boyfriend, leave the Lower East Side behind, and all that. I kid her about meeting a rich stockbroker and getting herself set up in a house with a pool in return. A few months from now she’ll vanish from the scene. Some guys on the avenue will claim she OD’d. I kid myself and pretend she’s out in L.A. in a little pink house on a hillside with a husband and a kid that looks like her.

Right now she’s alive and beautiful, talking from the hip the way she does, her hair licking the wind at the start of her final summer in Alphaville.

“He’s for sure gonna start some crap,” Venus says, tugging a strand from her mouth. I’ve heard her curse out guys on the street in two languages worth of blue and it kills me how she censors herself when she gives us a tip-off.

“Big Arthur used to have a lot of spots and move a lot of stuff, like way before you guys. He’s been upstate for a long time, but he’s coming back like right soon. He’s a nasty SOB, Rambo. Worse than his brother.”

Shit. Michael Washington, Big Arthur’s brother, is a first-class asshole and a neighborhood menace. Though barely out of his teens, Michael has already done enough time to cultivate the classic prison yard bodybuilder look—arms the width of fire hydrants and a tight, swaggering walk. When I first meet him, the word on Michael is that he had gone into the stickup business to support a newfound dope habit. Driving down Avenue C one afternoon, Gio and I see Michael strutting along the sidewalk like Ric Flair, forcing people to step aside and put a foot in the gutter as he passes. We slow to a crawl, matching his pace. After about half a block, I punch the siren trigger on the steering wheel to jolt him. He doesn’t even flinch. Is he fucking deaf? We pull over in front of him and got out. It’s time to employ one of the most effective and adaptable tools in a cop’s bag of tricks—the discon.

According to the NYPD Patrol Guide, article 240.20 of the penal code describes disorderly conduct—a C summons violation and a pink ticket like letting your dog go on the sidewalk or jumping a turnstile—as any situation in which a person “engages in fighting or in violent, tumultuous or threatening behavior,” “makes unreasonable noise,” “uses abusive or obscene language,” or “makes an obscene gesture,” “disturbs any lawful assembly,” “obstructs vehicular or pedestrian traffic,” “congregates with other persons and refuses to disperse,” or “creates a hazardous or physically offensive act which serves no legitimate purpose.”

In other words, issuing a disorderly conduct or discon summons was a perfect catchall allowing any cop to hassle, search, and lock up anyone annoying, threatening, or looking like they could use a search or a warrant check on the Command’s computer. The law requires the unlucky but always deserving recipient of a discon to make a mandatory court appearance on a given date (announced at roll call each morning), something a majority of skells are too fucked up or arrogant to remember to do. Even if a search and warrant check doesn’t turn up anything useful, issuing a discon ticket plants the seed for a future arrest for failure to appear in court.

We toss Michael but he’s clean—no gun, no dope. It’s an educational collar anyway. Once it’s clear that we’re arresting him, he cans the attitude and doesn’t give us any fight. At least not on purpose.

“Fuck me,” Gio says as he pulls at Michael’s arms. He’s gotten one side of his cuffs onto one of Michael’s wrists, but the guy’s arms are so pumped that Gio can’t get them close together enough behind his back to attach the other cuff.

“Ow! Yo, you hurting my shoulder and shit!” Michael yells as I push his other arm. It eventually takes both of our sets of cuffs joined end to end to get his wrists fastened behind his back. By the time we get Michael cuffed and in the car, I feel like I moved a couch up a flight of stairs.

Within a month or so Michael’s dope habit eclipses what little sense he has and the stickups we could never nail him for go from bold to ridiculous. He’s finally arrested hours after going into his local bodega wearing a ski mask and carrying an Uzi. The guy behind the counter has probably seen Michael at the counter, minus the mask and the Uzi, for every day of Michael’s entire life outside the pen. The guy hands over the contents of his register, waits for Michael to leave, calls 911, gives Michael Washington’s name and points out where Michael lives with his mother to the officers that respond. The Uzi and the stolen cash are there on his bed and Michael works out in a prison yard for the next decade.